Media reports following the IPCC release could be summed up like this:
"The earth is warming, it's mankind's fault, and no one can question it."

During Sam Champion's January 31 ABC segment, he stated that the IPCC
report would conclude with 99 percent certainty that global warming is
caused by mankind's fossil fuel pollution.

But the actual report, released on February 2, "confirmed they're 90
percent certain manmade greenhouse gas emissions are causing alarming rates
of global warming," according to correspondent Dawna Friesen of NBC "Nightly
News."

Unlike the IPCC scientists, the media must have been 100 percent
certain, because stories about the IPCC report on February 2 ABC, NBC and
CBS broadcasts included no other point of view.

"The top climate experts from all around the world, speaking with one
voice, issued a blunt and bleak assessment today on global warning. There
was no ambiguity in their words," said ABC's Charles Gibson during "World
News."

Experts who disagreed with the IPCC were nowhere to be found in those
February 2 network stories.

But there are many experts who disagree, including climatologist Dr.
Timothy Ball, who stated in a February 5 article that "Global warming, as we
think we know it, doesn't exist." Ball earned his Ph.D. in climatology from
the University of London and taught the science at the University of
Winnipeg.

In his article, Ball also said that global warming is not caused by
human carbon dioxide emissions, calling it "the greatest deception in the
history of science." He then cited the global cooling consensus from 30
years ago and said "global temperature trends now indicate a cooling" to
come.

Another scientist, astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shariv, once said that human
carbon dioxide emissions were causing global warming, but has since recanted
and now blames solar activity. Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov agrees because he
has seen evidence on another planet.

"Mars has global warming, but without a greenhouse and without the
participation of Martians," Abdussamatov told Canada's National Post.

Convenient Fact Selection

Also conspicuously absent from the post-IPCC report stories on the
networks was the mention of a significant revision to U.N. predictions of
sea level rise. According to The Wall Street Journal, in 2001 the U.N. was
predicting a high-end sea level rise of three feet by 2100, but the new
report leaves high-end estimates at 17 inches - a 52.7-percent decrease.

"[W]hat's not new in today's IPCC report - that humans are warming the
planet - will be treated as big news, while what is new - that sea levels
are not likely to rise as much as previously predicted - will be ignored, at
least by everyone except the extremist fringe," predicted climatologist
Patrick J. Michaels on February 2.

Michaels was correct. ABC's Bill Blakemore left out the revision of
U.N. predictions in a segment about that very topic: rising sea levels.
"World News" anchor Bill Weir introduced the report saying that rising water
"may be the scariest part of all." In fact, Blakemore's story sounded like
the opposite of the U.N.'s reduced prediction.

"Sea levels could rise in the coming decades faster than anyone
thought," said Blakemore, who later warned that by the year 2030, 2,000
Indonesian islands could disappear.

Instead of reporting the backpedaling of the IPCC, NBC's Campbell
Brown interviewed eco-celebrity Laurie David of
http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/ on February 3. The Saturday "Today"
co-host gushed about Al Gore's Academy Award and Nobel Peace Prize
nominations and how his documentary caused people to take the issue of
global warming "to heart." She also told viewers to change their light
bulbs.

The reports didn't even attempt to provide balance or to present all
the relevant facts.

But that was nothing new to CNN's Lou Dobbs. Just two days earlier,
Dobbs left behind all journalistic objectivity and admitted to silencing the
debate for the purposes of his show "Lou Dobbs Tonight." "I'll tell you
something we did on this show, oh about seven, eight months ago because I
finally got tired of the debate. I said, 'All right, on this broadcast at
least for the purposes of this audience and this broadcast we're going to
assume that mankind has a significant role in global warming," said Dobbs on
January 30.